Supervision â Responsibility â Society. Concerning the social history of supervision in Germany

Project title: Supervision â Responsibility â Society. Concerning the social history of supervision in Germany

Project type: Third-party funds project

Project description:

Supervision as it currently is has an eventful history. It is astonishing that the history of supervision in Germany is so far predominantly explored in a so-called subject-specific way referring to the history of theory, of terms and of methods, whereas it has not yet been researched in a social and political context. This situation caused the âDeutsche Gesellschaft fÃ¼r Supervisionâ (= German Society for Supervision) in cooperation with the âSigmund-Freud-Institutâ (= Sigmund-Freud-Institute) in Frankfurt on the Main to run a research project dealing with the social history of supervision in Germany starting in April 2013.The basic assumption of the project is that the development of supervision cannot be perceived without social and political processes but rather as a part of those. This does not only apply to the early development of supervision in the context of democratization efforts of the Allies but also to the advancement during the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, which must be observed within the frame of cultural and social, as well as political and economic changes of that time: Which significance do e.g. the diverse protest movements of the 1960s and 70s, processes of national armament (domestic safety, employment ban,â¦), a growing environmental consciousness, globalization and neoliberalism have for the (further) development of supervision? However, the project also considers the question how supervision itself as a reflexive social praxis contributed to social change on a micro or meso level.The research project scrutinizes the development of supervision in Germany from an actor point of view: Based on interviews with supervisors (oral history, narrative interviews) as well as an analysis of everyday documents, which have been originated during the institutionalization and professionalization of supervision, the social history of supervision can be reconstructed from the bottom up and it can be presented from a daily life perspective. In doing so, the project aims for proving historically the social relevance and responsibility of supervision.

The project is being financed by the âDeutsche Gesellschaft fÃ¼r Supervisionâ (= German Society for Supervision).